He leaned back. “Come, then, up with you and let’s see to your dressing. If I can’t taste, I may at least look my fill.”
Judith gazed into his eyes for a moment. It had been nearly two weeks since he’d made love to her. Maybe he had left her right after their marriage to go to his mistress. But Judith realized that Gavin was hers right now, and she would make the most of that possession. Many people told her she was beautiful, but she usually dismissed them as flatterers. She knew her curved body was quite different from the thin one of Alice Valence. But once Gavin had desired her body. She wondered if she could make those eyes darken from gray to black.
She slowly pulled an edge of the coverlet back and stuck out one bare foot, then drew the coverlet to mid-thigh. She flexed both feet. “I think my ankle has quite recovered, don’t you?” She smiled up at him innocently, but he wasn’t looking at her face.
Very slowly, she moved the coverlet away from her firm, round hip, then exposed her navel, her flat stomach. She slipped slowly out of the bed and stood before him in the early morning light.
Gavin stared at her. He hadn’t seen her nude in weeks. She had long, slim legs, round hips, a tiny waist and full rosy-tipped breasts.
“Damn the priest!” Gavin muttered as he held out a hand to touch the curve of her hip.
“Do not blaspheme, my lord,” Judith said seriously. Gavin looked up at her in surprise.
“It’s always a wonder to me that you wished to hide all that under the guise of a nun.” Gavin sighed heavily as he looked at her, his palms aching with the desire to touch her. “Be a good girl and fetch your clothes. I cannot bear this sweet torture any longer. Another moment, and I would rape you before the priest’s very eyes.”
Judith turned to her clothes chest and hid her smile. Would it be rape, she wondered.
She took her time dressing, enjoying his eyes upon her and his strained silence. She slipped on a thin cotton chemise embroidered with tiny bl
ue unicorns. It barely reached to mid-thigh. Matching drawers came next. Then she put her leg up on the edge of the bench where Gavin sat stonily, and carefully pulled the silk stockings over her legs, held in place by garters.
She reached across him for her dress of rich, brown cashmere from Venice. Silver lions were embroidered down the front and along the hem. Gavin’s hands trembled as he fastened the buttons down the back. A silver filigree belt completed the costume, but Judith could not seem to manage the simple buckle by herself.
“Done,” she said after a long time of struggling with the uncooperative garments.
Gavin let out his long-held breath.
“You make an excellent maid,” she laughed, whirling about in a sea of brown and silver.
“No,” Gavin said honestly. “I would die in less than a week. Now come below with me and don’t tease me anymore.”
“Yes, my lord,” Judith said obediently, her eyes twinkling.
Within the inner bailey was a long field with a heavy carpet of sand. Here the Montgomery men and their chief vassals trained. A straw dummy swung from a gibbet which the men made sword passes at as they rode their war horses. A ring attached between two poles was the object of more passes with both sword and lance. There was also a man who was slashing at a four-inch post buried deeply in the ground by using a two-handed grip on his sword.
Gavin sat down heavily on a bench at the edge of the training ground. He took off his helmet and ran his hand through his sweat-dampened hair. His eyes were sunken into dark pits, his cheeks drawn, his shoulders aching with weariness. It had been four days since that morning he’d helped Judith dress. During that time he’d slept very little, ate even less, so that now his senses were taut.
He leaned his head back against the stone wall and thought that there was little more that could have happened. Several serfs’ cottages had caught fire, and the wind had sent sparks into the dairy. He and his men had fought the fire for two days, sleeping on the ground where they fell. One night he’d spent in the stables with a mare that delivered a colt by breech birth. Judith stayed with him throughout the night, holding the horse’s head, handing Gavin cloths and ointments before he knew he needed them. Never had he felt so close to anyone as he had then. At dawn, with a feeling of triumph, they stood together and watched the little colt take its first shaky steps.
Yet for all their closeness in spirit, their bodies were as far apart as ever. Gavin felt that at any moment he might go insane with wanting her. He wiped the sweat from his eyes as he stared across the yard and saw Judith walking toward him. Or did he imagine it? She seemed to be everywhere before his eyes, even when she was not.
“I brought you something cool to drink,” she said, holding out a mug to him.
He stared at her intently.
She put the mug beside him on the bench. “Gavin, are you well?” she asked as she put a cool hand on his brow.
He grabbed her violently and pulled her down. His lips sought hers hungrily, forcing them open. He didn’t think that she might deny him; he was past caring.
Her arms went about his neck and her response to his kiss was as eager as his. Neither cared that half the castlefolk watched. There was no one but the two of them. Gavin moved his lips to her neck. He wasn’t gentle. He acted as if he would devour her if at all possible.
“My lord!” someone said impatiently.
Judith opened her eyes to see a boy standing nearby, a rolled paper in his hand. She suddenly remembered who and where she was. “Gavin, there is a message for you.”
He didn’t move his lips from her neck, and Judith had to concentrate very hard to keep her mind on the waiting boy.
“My lord,” the boy said. “It’s an urgent message.” He was very young—before his first beard—and he looked on Gavin’s kissing of a woman as a waste of time.